Saturday, July 08, 2006

Don't be a Buzzkill, Bachelet

This Tuesday Chile’s President Michelle Bachelet held an informal breakfast with the National Press Association, fielding questions from 34 reporters about her time thus far in office.

When prompted to comment on the recent “crime wave” of juvenile delinquency, Bachelet said media coverage has created a “sensational environment of fear,” and further criticized the news for not discussing the underlying causes of crime.

Thank you Bachelet, you've proved my point: a "nice" and "compassionate" single mother is just not presidential material. What's next!? Time-out corner and a mother’s kind words of wisdom for a raging robber?

Sure, Bachelet, you support dialogue, you want to reduce poverty, bla bla bla. But I’ll hear none of it. We’ve got bigger fish to fry. I count my self proudly among the 86.7 percent of Chileans who fear being a victim of crime.

So the liberals tell us that crime’s gone down from 43 percent in 2003 to 38 percent in 2005. Fact schmact. So what if these lazy delinquents are getting lazier. I could have told you that!

But let's give an accolade to those who really deserve it. Indeed, it's nice to know that at least someone’s been getting to work on time; the news media – they clock in every day and do their job well. They haven't missed a beat. They've got me scared shitless.

If I wasn’t barraged with constant images of car chases, burglaries and shootings, then I might actually listen to what the president is saying. Then where’d we be!

No, that’s not the intellectually dishonest path I'd like to go down. The one that says crime is caused by social factors like poverty. It also says we won't solve anything by hyping it up in the media. That's a bad line of thinking, because it's just no fun.

Me, I like mystery. I like the thought of arming myself against this mystery. When I go home to watch TV in Chile, I never know what to expect. An assualt? A burglary? A stabbing? Each day it’s different -- it's so exciting!

Where's my gun!

Thanks to the media devoting half their airtime to delinquency, we residents Santiago and all of Chile would wholeheartedly welcome a law enforcement crackdown á la Rudy Giuliani. My one request, though: keep the crime coverage coming. (I just can't get enough of that stuff).

Again, Ms. Buzzkill would have us entertain some wishy-washy sociological debate over causes of crime and constructive means to a positive end.

Schmend.

Don't listen to her, Chilean press, just let the good times role. Adelante!